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My suction line clogged on a pond job in Baton Rouge and I had to think fast
Last Thursday I was cutting a new channel through a silted up pond on a job site outside Baton Rouge when the suction line on my 8 inch dredge plugged up solid. I knew exactly what happened the second the flow gauge dropped to zero, I had pushed too deep into a soft mud pocket and the pump was trying to swallow more spoil than it could handle. I killed the engine right away so I wouldn't burn up the pump, then grabbed a pipe wrench and started pulling the hose at the first elbow. Took about 25 minutes to get the section off, and sure enough it was packed tight with black muck and a couple of roots mixed in. I cleared it out by hand, flushed the line with clean water from the shore tank, and put it back together with new gaskets. Went back to cutting at a slower feed rate and the flow held steady for the rest of the day. Any of you got a better way to handle root clogs than pulling the elbow apart every time?
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